Mary Gostelow

4 days ago | girlahead.com | Mary Gostelow

There are so many stories about Four Seasons Singapore. You still walk along the corridor around 190 Restaurant, with the bar the other side and its attractive terrace garden. And as you walk around, you still go through a shopping arcade that is themed Club 21, part of the fashion empire of the Ong family. Some of the frocks hanging up are really quite attractive. They’re hung with maximum airspace, so you can see the front and back of each garment hanging on a rail just in front of you.

5 days ago | girlahead.com | Mary Gostelow

Breakfast at Four Seasons Singapore tells a story – and it’s crammed full of colour. Of course you can have room service. You can also have it brought to you by one of the hotel’s two pools, on the third floor and 20th floor rooftop. You can, if you’ve got access, have breakfast in the elegant executive club lounge on the third floor. Or you can go to the ground floor, 190 Restaurant. Now here’s the story.

1 week ago | girlahead.com | Mary Gostelow

Oh the memories of travel, past-past and past-last-week. Every night in suite 348 at Raffles Singapore a little booklet appeared. One was a précis of Tropical Trials, a Handbook for Women in the East, by Hunt and Shelley Leigh, written over a century before but not published until 2006. It advised on packing: ‘Open all your trunks and lay them on their sides facing the fire so that the interiors may become thoroughly aired before packing commences.

1 week ago | girlahead.com | Mary Gostelow

Breakfast outside in Raffles’ Tiffin courtyard means you’re surrounded by the Tiffin Room itself, and part of a shopping arcade with East India Room, and AP Café. Beyond one end of the courtyard, shielded by greenery, is the Fairmont Hotel. In the centre of the courtyard is a  palest blue elaborate fountain, probably 24 feet high, above. It was made in Glasgow in the 19th century and on an unknown 21st century day a Chinese female celeb had her photograph taken here.

1 week ago | girlahead.com | Mary Gostelow

Raffles Singapore is an adult fairyland. Take Butcher’s Block restaurant, a partnership between the hotel, run by Christian Westbeld – on the left, above – and culinarian Jordan Keao.  It’s a dark space, with the most illumination for the stage at one end, except it’s not a raised stage. It’s  level, but behind a 1.5m high wall goes on the activity of preparing food, with an illuminated butchery at one side. And sure enough, the butchering is actually done there.